There are disasters and calamities of all sorts that, at the very least, cause people a great deal of trouble. While fraud isn’t technically a disaster, its impact is bad enough to be considered ‘financial disaster’. Now, fraud isn’t a generic term. There are frauds of many different types and each type of fraud has several variants of scams. The primary purpose of fraud is to cheat people of their hard-earned money. In this article, we will examine the meaning and scope of ‘lottery fraud’, a source of major trouble for those who fall prey to it. If you know how it works, then you can take care to ensure that you never become a victim of such scams.
How Lottery Fraud Works
This type of scam works in an innocuous manner. Have a look at the intricacies of this sort of fraud –
It begins by the potential victim receiving an email from an unfamiliar email address. The person who wrote that email claims to be a representative of an international lottery company informing you that you have won a lot of money in their annual or bi-annual lottery. The explanation as to how you won a lottery you have no recollection of having entered is this – your email address was selected at random by their computers. This makes it seem as though it could happen to anybody, but this time, you were the one who got lucky.
You are then instructed to get in touch with their ‘agent’ whose number is provided in the email, to collect your money. To make it seem even more believable, they state that you can collect your money in ‘cash or any way you like it’. If you do call this ‘agent’, then you will be asked to provide details such as your bank account number, social security number, and other such sensitive information. Always keep in mind that this information is highly confidential, and you should never ever hand over this information to anyone unless you know the person well enough to trust him or her.
If the con artist gets his hands on your account information or other such details, you could become a victim of identity theft. And in these days, that’s a very dangerous thing, notwithstanding the legal implications of unscrupulous persons misusing your identity. Also, you stand to lose a lot of your hard-earned money through this scam. Even if the scam artist doesn’t misuse your details, you might be asked to pay a fee upfront, to permit the release of your prize-money. If you do this, then you’ll probably never see that ‘prize money’, and you can say goodbye to the money you gave for its ‘release’ too.
So remember, to be suspicious of any such email you receive. There is no such thing as an ‘online international lottery’ in the first place, and you shouldn’t be taken in by any claims to the contrary. Otherwise, you might end up getting cheated through lottery fraud.